Literary Criticism
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Review: Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12) by Charlaine Harris
The Southern Vampire Mystery Series prepares to meet the true death. In the latest Sookie Stackhouse installment, Deadlocked, writer Charlaine Harris seems to be tying up a lot of loose ends in preparation for the final installment due out next year (2013). The last few books have sort of dwindled in excitement and interest for me….particularly All Dead in the Family (Book 10) and Dead Reckoning (Book 11) so I’ll be honest I didn’t have high expectations for this installment. I was pleasantly surprised with the way Deadlock unfolded. I didn’t feel the need to devour the book rapidly…though I did finish it quickly, I didn’t feel like every page…
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Review: The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
All things have a way of coming back to us in the end. Even if just as a memory from long ago, they are still with us….always. Memories are a funny thing. How accurate are your memories? Has your subconscious twisted your memories and changed the from what really happened to what you remember? How much can you truly trust your memory? Those little moments of déjà vu, was it just that or perhaps you had really been there before in a past life. What recalls a memory most to you, scent? Sound? A place? There is much that science doesn’t know about memory and much that simply cannot be…
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Review: Wentworth Hall by Abby Grahame
All secrets have a way of coming out in the end. Every family has their own secrets that they would rather not become public knowledge….but when your family is rich….the gossip columns love nothing better than a juicy family secret. At Wentworth Hall, while family fortune might be in short supply….juicy secrets are not. Maggie Darlington has just returned from a year abroad in France with her mother and new born baby brother and his French nanny. While abroad Maggie has matured, almost beyond recognition….. she has cast off her girlish styles, activities, and friends. The once spirited, will-full teen has now conformed into a model young woman and with…
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Review: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire #3) by George R.R. Martin
Five kings. One throne. When you play the Game of Thrones you win….or you die. In George R. R. Martin’s epic high fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, plenty of characters meet their valiant demise, but there can only be one king who will sit the Iron Throne….but which king? In the third book, A Storm of Swords, many different plot lines and POV’s finally begin to come to maturation but just when you think you have the series, a plot line, or character all figured out and summed up….Martin takes you in an unexpected direction. For me, this was the best book in the series so far.…
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Review: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
For each of us the name Cleopatra conjures up many vivid images… sensuality, seduction, beauty, the exotic, wealth, excess, Elizabeth Taylor. While the legend of Cleopatra is prevalent, what has been buried over time is this incredible woman’s real tale. What we know of her today comes to us through the writings of pissy old dead guys. In her book Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff attempts to sift through these accounts, many of which are brimming with Roman propaganda, to reveal a woman even more impressive than her modern day persona. I like to think of her as the O.B., the Original Bitch. Cleopatra became Queen of Egypt at the…
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Review: Mr Churchill’s Secretary (Maggie Hope #1) by Susan Elia MacNeal
With flaming red hair to match the bombs bursting in air, Margaret Hope sits behind a typist desk in the Prime Minsters office at Number 10…waiting to be useful to someone….anyone. Air raid sirens sound throughout London in 1940. Bombs drop from the air threatening to destroy the heart and soul of the British people. In this dark time, Winston Churchill has been named PM and with any luck, he will keep the British spirit alive while war rages on….though he knowns a German invasion is eminent, all he needs is a little bit of hope to give the people. As luck would have it, Churchill does have Hope in…
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Review: The Journal of Countess Francoise Krasinska by Klementyna Tanska Hoffman
Charming towering spires, castles, and palaces litter Poland in the 18th century which makes it the perfect backdrop for a fairytale romance. In The Journal of Countess Francoise Krasinska by Klementyna Tanska Hoffman we explore the true life fairytale romance of Francoise Krasinska and the Prince Royal, Charles Duke of Courland (Poland/Lithuanian region). Klementyna Tanska Hoffman pens this historic account of the Countess Francoise courtship and hasty marriage to the Duke. Though it is a second-hand account of the events, they are historically accurate and offer a unique insight into the royal court during the Georgian era. I am not familiar with Eastern European history….at all, so I was a little…
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Review: The Earthquake Machine by Mary Pauline Lowry
They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, in the case of Rhonda her single step leads here on a transcendental journey into Mexico. Mary Pauline Lowry’s debut novel, The Earthquake Machine, tells the story of 14 year old Rhonda whose life has been turned upside down. Rhonda’s mother is the typical ‘desperate housewife’, in a loveless marriage more about convenience and comfort than love. Rhonda’s father (a pharmacist) supplies her unstable mother with prescription drugs to keep her in line while he is out having an affair. They live in a ticky tacky house on the hillside where all the houses look just the same….but thanks to the…
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Review: The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott
Beware the Ravenswood! Sir Walter Scott’s, The Bride of Lammermoor is a must read for fans of the genre….a classic gothic romance! This is your ultimate indulgence gothic romance fans…honest and truly. This ridiculously over the top tale has it all…witches, women going mad, a family fallen from grace, degenerative castles, ruined fortunes, Byronic heros, star crossed lovers, a dark prophecy, ominous symbology….everything! It is MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Wuthering Heights all rolled into one. The novel is introduced as a tale based on a true story, set in Scotland at the time of Queen Anne (early 1700’s). Lord Ravenswood is dead and all that remains of the Ravenswood…
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Review: A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy by Helen Rappaport
The romance between Prince Albert and Queen Victoria is legendary–a love that bordered on obsession. Helen Rappaport’s latest non-fiction book, A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy explores how a fairy tale romance turned into a dark melancholy that altered the course of the British monarchy. I won an ARC of this book through Goodreads. Non-fiction is normally not my review genre….non-fiction is more The Lib Bitch’s area than mine :). But I love Queen Victoria and was thrilled when I won the giveaway. I haven’t read a lot of books on Queen Victoria but I know the love story like I know any classic fairy…